On October 17th and 18th, 2009, the American Kennel Club® (AKC) and Cat Fanciers’ Association® (CFA) hosted 36,000 people over two days at Meet the Breeds™ presented by PetPartners, Inc., in New York City. With the participation of nearly 200 dog clubs and cat councils and the support of over 100 vendors and 16 sponsors, the event was an unqualified success, featuring more than 115,000 square feet of dog and cat festivities.
While vendor booths offered every imaginable product for pets and their owners, five ongoing demonstration rings (featuring law enforcement K9s, grooming, agility, obedience and an interactive 'Cat Idol' showcase and more) entertained attendees all day long and complemented the main attraction: nearly 200 individually decorated breed booths where the public interacted with dogs, cats, puppies and kittens and learned about their history and unique attributes directly from the experts.
The event also hosted a few "boldface names" including fashion designer Michael Kors and famed columnist Cindy Adams who brought along her dogs Jazzy and Juicy to greet the huge crowds at the Yorkshire Terrier Club of America’s booth. Whoopi Goldberg, co-host on "The View" and Mario Lopez, host of "Extra" also attended to tape segments for their respective programs.
Never a breed to be left out, Pugs were ably represented by fanciers in the New York City area, including Local NYC Coordinator for AKC Meet The Breed, PDCA Member Robert Gravel. Bob reports, "Setup was on Friday and my wife Karen and I were there to setup the PDCA booth. We choose a Chinese theme and located lots of oriental décor including some paper parasols, oriental fabric, fans, and paper lanterns. The booth looked great and received lots of positive comments.
Saturday Morning we were met by fellow PDCA members Al and Jackie Hofer along with their pug Jacob and two adorable pug puppies. We brought some educational material and also received a box of the PDCA registration flyers from the AKC.
Sunday morning PDCA members Barbara and Myron Glazer joined us with their pugs, Twinkie and Tuggie. We also brought our 6 month old puppy so we could rotate pugs throughout the day and give each one a well deserved rest.
The outcome was just incredible and we spoke to so many people wanting information on our breed. I truly hope the AKC has this event again in 2010. It was a huge success.